The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Volume 1

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G. Bell, 1891
 

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Page 203 - Be Homer's works your study and delight, Read them by day, and meditate by night; Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims bring, And trace the Muses upward to their spring.
Page 210 - And value books, as women men, for dress: Their praise is still, — The style is excellent; The sense, they humbly take upon content. Words are like leaves; and where they most abound, Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.
Page 238 - Transformed to combs, the speckled and the white. Here files of pins extend their shining rows, Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet-doux.
Page 199 - Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill Appear in writing or in judging ill ; But, of the two, less dangerous is the offence To tire our patience, than mislead our sense. Some few in that, but numbers err in this ; Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss : A fool might once himself alone expose : Now one in verse makes many more in prose.
Page 213 - The sound must seem an echo to the sense. Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar. When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labours, and the words move slow; Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Page xlv - Me, let the tender office long engage, To rock the cradle of reposing age, With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death, Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, And keep awhile one parent from the sky...
Page 239 - Favours to none, to all she smiles extends; Oft she rejects, but never once offends. Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike, And, like the sun, they shine on all alike. Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride, Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide : If to her share some female errors fall, Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all.
Page 260 - ... in air, Weighs the men's wits against the lady's hair ; The doubtful beam long nods from side to side ; At length the wits mount up, the hairs subside. See fierce Belinda on the Baron flies, With more than usual lightning in her eyes : Nor fear'd the chief th' unequal fight to try, Who sought no more than on his foe to die.
Page 236 - And in soft sounds, Your Grace salutes their ear. 'Tis these that early taint the female soul, Instruct the eyes of young Coquettes to roll, Teach Infant-cheeks a bidden blush to know, And little hearts to flutter at a Beau. 90 Oft, when the world imagine women stray, The Sylphs thro' mystic mazes guide their way, Thro' all the giddy circle they pursue, And old impertinence expel by new.
Page 240 - But chiefly Love — to Love an Altar built, Of twelve vast French romances, neatly gilt. There lay three garters, half a pair of gloves, And all the trophies of his former loves; With tender billet-doux he lights the pyre, And breathes three amorous sighs to raise the fire.

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